Hong Kong Nov 2009 - Day 1

This vacation has been a unique experience for me, mostly because of mobile technology within my palm. For the first time, I am updating my whereabouts via Twitter and Facebook so that you people can get my latest status and photos.

And for those that missed my tweets, here's a chronological compilation over the past 5 days, plus additional footage (hahaha sounds like I'm marketing some "special edition" or "best compilation" or sorts).

Day 1, 26 Nov 2009

http://twitpic.com/qx5fd - 5.30am, i'm up, and so is the coffee shop. 5:47 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

Queueing to check-in manually at T1 Row 1. The self service counter is buggy, cannot process our e-tickets. 6:49 AM Nov 26th from Gravity


In the queue, i see everyone's irritated faces, and it really spoils the whole vacation experience for me. 6:55 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

Flight is overbooked. The staff requested us to volunteer for the next flight at 1010hrs with compensation. We agreed n now processing. 7:33 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

For the inconveniences, we were compensated with S$90 cash and US$75 in-flight vouchers. Each. 8:02 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

On top of that, they gave us breakfast vouchers to consume at the cafeteria. But the vouchers wrote for 5 pax, and the cashier lady so cute 8:21 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

She insisted that we utilise the full value, even if it means take-away. And so we ordered an American breakfast, 2 croissant, 2 coffees 8:23 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

http://twitpic.com/qxuli - ...1 tea, 2 mineral waters, 1 fruit punch, 1 can drink. Total worth about $33. And here's the photo of it all. 8:25 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

We didn't finish the tea and coffee, they tasted horrible. The tuna croissant was good but too salty.

Of all places, i found the SD card reader i've been looking for, in the airport duty free electronics shop. 9:36 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

Regarding this entry, I have been trying to find a small SD(HC) card reader that I can carry around with me. I have like over 20GB worth of SDHC cards lying around and I don't even have an electronic device that uses SD cards. This particular SD card reader is very compact, reads other formats, and is from MobileGear, a brand that I can at least rely instead of some bogus cheapo OEMs in Sim Lim. The exact model is CR4-03. http://www.mglifestyle.com/product_detail.php?item_no=317

Just boarded the Cathay Pacific plane. Over and out, Singapore! 9:59 AM Nov 26th from Gravity

After an hour of take-off delay, we only managed to touchdown Hong Kong at about 3pm. After a long wait at the baggage counter, we took the airport limousine coach, checked-in Hotel Panorama along Hart Ave, and by the time I settled down and figured out the China Mobile Prepaid IDD SIM card...

Live reporting from Kowloon, Hong Kong!!! Got my unlimited data pack activated. 5:59 PM Nov 26th from Gravity

China Mobile doesn't have a strong 3G network, now connected on low bandwidth and can't open too many connections on the phone. Bleah. 6:24 PM Nov 26th from Gravity

In fact, China Mobile HK doesn't have a 3G network, it's probably just EDGE. Who says Singapore's telco provide lousy network? You go Hong Kong and you get confused with all these operators and their what-nots. However, I must applaud their IVR for helping me do all the activations. And from the service offering point of view, CMHK is pretty comprehensive. You can sign up many VASes by just punching some # service commands.

Personally, I choose to purchase People's IDD Talk Stared Value SIM Card because they offer free IDD to 30 countries including Singapore. Only local airtime of HK$0.25/min is charged. So for my SIM, I activated the unlimited data pack for HK$78, leaving HK$20 for my IDD/local usages. By the time I left HK, I still have HK$10 remaining.

With data connectivity in my hands, I left the hotel and roamed the streets. We came to a shopping mall along Nathan Road. Forgot which mall was it, we just walked in.

http://twitpic.com/qzrdh - Ingenious shop name! Can read front to back. 6:31 PM Nov 26th from Gravity

Then after a quick meal at Cafe De Coral at the same mall, we headed to the "Avenue of Stars". There, we caught...

http://twitpic.com/qzu38 - A magnificent view of the skyline! Great xmas lights!!!! 7:12 PM Nov 26th from Gravity

Here's another shot on the Samsung ST550.


HK weather was around 20s degree. The breeze is rather chilling but not freezing. If there is no wind you could comfortably walk around with a t-shirt. But it is a must to carry a windbreaker just in case of sudden climate changes.

From there, we walked to Hankow Road where the ESPRIT outlet was, and dropped by HMV to get "The Very Best of Enya" CD+DVD album.

http://twitpic.com/r2yet - My newest enya compilation CD album, bought only becoz of the DVD music videos included.

I already had a bootleg Enya DVD years back, but this album contains new music videos. I didn't like the track selections. Actually, the track listing is different from the CD-only version, very puzzling why Warner Music did that. This is the first compilation album I bought of Enya. I had all her studio albums and a dozen of her singles, meticulously collected to avoid duplicates, as many of her singles contain unreleased tracks.

After a quick shopping spree, we headed back to hotel and had a good rest in preparation for the next day trip to Macau, which I will continue in my next blog entry.

Hong, Kong, Hong Kong

I'm off to the airport in less than 4 hours and I'm still blogging here! Just wanna drop a quick note that I'll be spending my days in Hong Kong from 26 to 30 Nov. And this time, I plan to utilise the social media to update my trip via Facebook or Twitter or Blogger or all of the above, depending on whether I have time and whether I can get the SIM to work with my E72 without any hiccups. China Mobile has this HK$78 Mobile Data Package that offers unlimited data usage for 30 days. They also have this IDD prepaid SIM that offers free IDD to selected destinations including Singapore, and all you pay is the local airtime of HK$0.25.

So if you are kaypo and want to know my every move in Hong Kong, check for my updates on the following sites:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chestertan
Twitter/Twitpic: http://twitter.com/musicdiary/

And while you are there, please comment and say hi.

Bye!

Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit

Those who follow me in Facebook or Twitter would know that I just purchased a new Intel i5 Core processor PC installed with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OS.

Why upgrade to Windows 7? Well, I completely skipped Vista, but Vista did have some visual improvements. And when reviewers started giving Windows 7 the thumbs-up, I decided that it's time to go for this new OS. Vista does have some great features, and Windows 7 has made them work better.

Why 64-bit? Because that's the future and it's the only way that software can utilise more than 4GB of RAM.

Why buy at launch and there are bound to be bugs? Because you're going to get free software updates anyway, so why not enjoy the entire software lifespan rather than buy it at it's end-of-life, like what happened to the Netbooks running on Windows XP.

The Aero theme certainly beautifies the interface, and some apps after make use of the Aero theme to deliver practical benefits. For instance, when doing file transfers using Windows Explorer, the window on the task bar shows the percentage completion with colour bar indicator.

I like the ease of able to pin applications on the start menu or the task bar. I like how the same app windows are placed side by side on the task bar (I disabled the grouping: I prefer to see every window represented individually on the task bar. I like how the context menu of the apps at the task bar shows app-related selections - for instance, right-click on the Live Messenger and you have options to change the online status.

While the Aero makes Windows 7 pretty, I prefer to stick to the classic (boring) theme. I can't stand how much space the Aero's window borders take and how it bloats up the application's frames. Thick borders are probably useful for touch-screen usage, for which Windows 7 readily supports.

But a few big benefits make the upgrade worthwhile:

1. Faster transfer speeds. It's probably more on the new Intel i5 Core processor and the new Gigabyte GA-P55A-uD4P mainboard architecture implementation.

2. Major speed improvements on some apps. Lightroom 64-bit is so much faster. Exporting 500 images took less than 15 minutes, when previously it could easily take more than an hour.

3. Overall overhaul on the OS. Bugs aside, the Win7 certainly has improvements on usability against WinXP. System stability is subjective from user to user. Afterall, stability depends a lot about the third party software and hardware. In that respect, branded computers will definitely run most stabily because the software and hardware drivers are optimised during product development.

I did have a few BSOD (blue screen crashes) during boot up, but after I removed a few legacy USB peripherals, it no longer has any BSOD. But a strange thing that happened is that Windows 7 has problems establishing network connectivity with my router on first startup. I can easily resolve this by rebooting the OS and afterwhich things are fine. Not sure if it's an OS problem or the router problem.

Some apps do have stability problems on 64-bit OS, like Firefox, that crashes many times on me. Good thing is that Win7 recovers crashes better.

I must say that I am very happy with Win7 so far and I recommend the upgrade if you run memory-hungry applications, like multimedia production.

Nokia E72: An owner's review

Yep, I cannot imagine not owning the E72 as it launched in Singapore on 14 Nov, but I had to wait until this Monday before I could get my hands on the Black edition from my nearest StarHub Shop (I could travel to another location but I could wait).

I have come across numerous positive reviews about this phone, and while people do qualify that the phone is not a revolutionary difference from E71, my first-hand first-time experience is far from what they have summarised.

Here are some personal feedback about the E72, with direct comparison with the E71.

1. The black plastic at the back of the phone is matt. The E71 is a glossier plastic surface that feels more durable and more susceptible to usage marks.

2. The optical navi-pad needs getting used to in the first few hours of usage. The trick is to lightly glaze on the pad instead of rubbing it like an aladdin lamp. The challenge is to know how to control the speed of the slide. I don't think anyone can master it, as it really depends on the mood of the E72. I mean, for some apps, a swipe can scroll many lines. For some, a super swipe can only move one line a time. Fortunately, the D-pad can be used at the same time. And I wonder if this optical navi-key is durable enough to be abused with all the rigorous swipings and rubbings.

3. Nokia Messaging's menu transitions (edited 30/11/2009). In general, menu transitions can be turned off which will speed up the navigation. But this disabling option is not available for the Nokia Messaging emails. It's a small pain if you like to access the emails as promptly as your text messages.

4. Multi-press implementation on the keypad. On the E71, say when I press any key, I need not release the key before I press another letter, and the E71 registers the key. For E72, if I do not release a key, the next key-press within the number keypad range (1-0, * and #) cannot be registered (any other characters outside the keypad range is ok). As a result, I will tend to miss out a few characters during usage. I reckon there are some multi-press controls pertaining to the number keypads, but there wasn't such a problem on the E71, so I wonder why.

5. Key layout changes. In the E71, the softkeys and the answer/hangup keys protrude and the 4 shortcut buttons are recessed. In the E72, it's the reverse. The 4 shortcut buttons are slightly raised while the other 4 surrounding buttons are relatively lowered. As a result, I often find myself pressing the "Home" or "Message" keys more often.

6. Battery life. It's no different from my E71. Even if there is, the difference is negligible as I would have to charge the phone daily just in case.

7. Memory. After start-up, my RAM remains about 28MB. It's worse than E71 where it's a health 60MB. Phone auto-restart already happens a few times over the past 3 days.

8. Interface speed. While the transition effects slow some screens, the E72 zips by on the other standard screens. One noticeable speed bump that I frequently use is the Inbox message. It scrolls to the next message instantly.

9. Nokia Messaging. It's better integrated into the Messaging menu. It also has more sync schedule options.

10. E71 apps. All the existing E71 apps continues to work, even themes. But I'm not sure if there are any underlying issues, for instance, memory management. But for now, Handy Shell and Gravity are the only 2 third-party apps that I am running on the background most often.

11. Camera (add 30/11/2009). The camera app opens just as slow, and the focus is even slower than E71.

On the whole, the Nokia E72's major difference in the usage experience is the optical navi-pad. I got so used to the optical pad that I habitually tried to swipe when using the E71 (now proudly owned by my wifey). I prefer the handling of the E71 which feels more streamlined. And though statistics show that E72 is heavier by 1g, I actually thought the E71 felt heavier (perhaps with additional weight from the accumulated dirt).

Personally, I would not have bought the E72 if not for the attractive launch price coupled with the need to trade-in my old Sony Ericsson G900. Any later and the G900 would be worth nothing. On top of that, I signed up for the MaxMobile Premium at $9.95 for 24 months that takes another $100 off the phone price. So the final price tag for my E72: $118, recontracted on my wifey's PowerPlay II.

I'm very glad my wifey can now enjoy the benefits of the E71, especially in the ease of online connectivity. She is now able to Facebook more frequently and do Google searches with ease, certainly a better experience that her previous Samsung Pixon, no doubt a great phone and camera but fails terribly in online connectivity.

Flood at Bukit Timah

I heard about the Bt. Timah flood yesterday from Keropokman's tweet around noon. From there, I searched in Twitter and found many tweets mainly from students in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. As soon as I found some photos and video, I tweeted them by 3pm.

Yesterday's flood reminded me of a similar one I experienced in the early 1990s (or was it late 1980s) when I was in Secondary (or was I in Primary?) school. Similar to that effect, Bt. Timah Rd was flooded and traffic came to a stall. I was actually at Bt. Timah Road itself, at the stretch where it was no flood. But there was no traffic, probably because the other stretches of the road was flooded and thus no vehicles could pass through where I was. My parent's car was along the affected stretch and my mum described how the waters seeped into the car while she was driving and flooded the seats. We had to endure weeks of damp smell whenever we sat in the car.

Back then, Internet was non-existent and we had to wait for the following days to see the full impact from the newspapers or the evening news on TV. Today, I got the news within minutes after it happened from Twitter.

Today, everyone can get news the moment it happens. If you know where and how to search.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_456468.html?vgnmr=1
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_456808.html
http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/39240.html

Anna L: Portfolio

After the previous outdoor casual shoot, Anna and I did a studio session at my house. Every model must have a few of such photos in their portfolio when going for casting. And there should be minimal photoshopping (save to remove pimples or eye bags), as it is rather misleading if the real person turns out to look different from the photo.

Makeup and hairstyling by Lynette Pang, who also did a great haircut job for the shoot.






Apart from doing Anna's portfolio shoot over the weekend, I also did a pre-wedding photoshoot with Pierre and Jane. They are both avid scuba divers, and naturally, the photos revolve around the waters. I'll be ploughing through the thousand-plus images I shot in the 2-day shoot, but here's a preview shot: